Friday, November 30, 2012

Pat Nixon and Betty Ford

THELMA CATHERINE "PAT" RYAN NIXON

Born:Ely, Nevada
16 March, 1912

*Although
she was born as Thelma Catherine Ryan Nixon, she assumed the name of
"Patricia," or "Pat" upon the death of her father; of Irish parentage,
he had first called her "St. Patrick's babe in the morn," because she
was born at night, just hours before St. Patrick's Day

Marriage:21 June, 1940 at Mission Inn, Riverside,
California to Richard Milhous Nixon (born 13 January 1913, Yorba Linda,
California, lawyer, died 23 April, 1994, New York, New York); they had
met while both were performing in a production of The Dark Tower
staged by the Whittier Community Players, a local theater group; after a
honeymoon to Laredo and Mexico City, Mexico, they settled in an
apartment in Whittier.

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:Vice President
Nixon's 1960 race for the presidency drew upon Pat Nixon's public
recognition. An entire ad campaign was built around the slogan of "Pat
For First Lady," a message carried on buttons, bumper stickers and
antenna, all marketed to the demographic of housewives - like Pat Nixon -
who were heavily courted by the Republican Party during the 1950's. She
also publicly advocated that women should become more involved in the
political process as volunteers for their parties. The press briefly
attempted to create a "race" for First Lady between her and the
Democratic candidate's wife Jacqueline Kennedy based on their clothing
costs and styles.

The razor-thin loss for her husband and the
disputed win by Kennedy permanently dimmed Pat Nixon's view of politics.
Thus she was less eager when Nixon ran again in 1968. Her responses to
the media were more rote and controlled as a means of protecting her
privacy. Her role in the President's re-election campaign was more
enthused as she made thousands of appearances on her own by jet plane,
often flying from one corner of the nation to the other in a day. She
addressed controversial and substantive questions when the press posed
them to her.

First Lady:20 January 1969 - 9 August, 1974

If
the public expects a First Lady to reflect the "average" American
woman, Pat Nixon faced a challenge when she assumed the post in 1969 - a
time when the role of women in American society was being dramatically
redefined in both perception and reality. Pat Nixon became the first
incumbent First Lady to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment. She was the
first to disclose publicly her pro-choice view on abortion in reaction
to questions on the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.
Before she even began unrelentingly to lobby her husband to name a
woman to the Supreme Court, she called for such an appointment publicly.
She even became the first First Lady to appear publicly in pants and
model them for a national magazine, reflecting the radical change in
women's attire that critics derided as masculine. Still, Pat Nixon
valued her identity as a middle-class homemaker, supportive wife and
devoted mother and was often depicted as the quintessential
traditionalist in relief to the popular persona of the "liberated
woman."

ELIZABETH ANN BETTY* BLOOMER WARREN FORD

Birth:

8 April 1918
Chicago, Illinois

Husband and Marriage:first marriage
24 years old, to William Gustavas Warren, insurance and furniture salesman, (born March 1917, Sullivan County, Missouri) on23
April 1942, Grand Rapids, Michigan; divorced 15 December 1947. Much of
the Bloomer-Warren marriage was spent in a variety of cities, occurring
during and after World War II. Warren suffered from diabetes and was
ineligible for the draft. Just as she was intending to file for divorce
from Warren, she received word that he had suffered a coma in Boston,
Massachusetts, where he was working at the time. Living there to care
for him as he began to recover, the couple would then relocate to his
parents’ home in Grand Rapids. For two years, Betty Warren would live in
the home of her in-laws in an upstairs room while her semi-invalid
husband was cared for on a lower floor. Once he was able to recover and
return to full employment, the divorce proceeded, granted to her on the
grounds of “extensive repeated cruelty.” In a 1987 interview, Mrs. Ford
reflected that the period would prove an instructive one for her as it
was her first full recognition of the inequitable salaries between the
genders who performed the same work (she had continued to work and
support him through his convalescence) and the unfair burdens that could
then legally be placed upon a wife supporting her spouse. Warren was
also alcoholic, a reality that only later Betty Ford confronted while
seeking her own recovery from the disease later in life.

*Betty
Ford is the third presidential wife whose first marriage had ended in
divorce, following Rachel Donelson Jackson’s 1793 divorce from Lewis
Robards, and Florence Kling Harding’s 1886 divorce from Henry DeWolfe.second marriage
30
years old to Gerald Rudolph. Ford, Jr., lawyer and congressional
candidate (born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr. after his birth father, but
renamed after his adoptive father, his mother’s second husband) 14 July
1913, Omaha, Nebraska, died 26 December 2006,* Rancho Mirage,
California) on 15, October 1948, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Before her
divorce was finalized, in August of 1947, mutual friends introduced
Betty Warren Bloomer to Gerald Ford. “Jerry” was a fellow Grand Rapids
resident, a young attorney who had served in the U.S. Navy during World
War II, and who had achieved fame in college football. Once she was
single they began dating. According to Mrs. Ford, he proposed marriage
to her that fall (he said he did so in February of 1948) but told her
they could not marry until the fall because he had a secret regarding
something he “had to do first.” She accepted, only to soon be told by
him that, he was planning to run for the Republican nomination for the
local seat to the U.S. Congress, and then the general election. Ford had
practical concerns that the morally conservative district might not
support his marriage to a divorced woman who had a career in modern
dance. The wedding was announced in June of that year – after he had won
the Republican nomination. They married just two weeks before Election
Day in 1948. Ford had to exit the rehearsal dinner early in order to
deliver a previously scheduled campaign speech. When he arrived late at
the church for the wedding ceremony, right from a campaign rally, Ford
was wearing dusty shoes in the color brown, which didn’t match his
wedding suit. She wore a simple dress that cost fifty dollars. The
honeymoon was spent attending a campaign rally, University of Michigan
football game and a speech given by the 1948 Republican presidential
candidate Thomas Dewey. On 2 November 1948, Ford was elected to the
first of twelve consecutive terms as a U.S. Congressman.

*To date, Gerald Ford lived longer than any U.S. President, dying at the age of 93 years old.

Campaign and Inauguration:

With the resignation of
Richard Nixon from the presidency, Gerald Ford was sworn in as Chief
Executive in the East Room of the White House on 9 August 1974, his wife
holding the Bible as he repeated the oath. In his Inaugural Address,
Ford became the first president to ever make reference to his wife: “I am indebted to no man and only one woman, my dear wife, Betty, as I begin this very difficult job."

Betty
Ford became First Lady under the unique circumstances in presidential
history. She was the wife of a Vice President who had not been elected
but rather appointed to the position when his incumbent-predecessor
resigned, who then inherited the presidency upon the resignation of the
incumbent President. Thus she did not endure an initial presidential
campaign for her husband’s presidency or vice-presidency, nor a
traditional inauguration which followed a presidential election.